The Red Tent Festival offers women the gift of embracing and celebrating all aspects of being a woman. By offering workshops, activities, films, storytelling and information that focus on menstruation, pregnancy, childbirth, menopause and understanding our maternal lineages, the festival hopes that every woman will leave with a sense of how amazing we are as women.

On Saturday 7 November 2009 we successfully birthed the Byron Shire's first ever Red Tent Festival.

It
was a huge success with more than 150 women in attendance throughout
the afternoon and evening of workshops, films and birth stories. We also
raised more than $5000 for improved birthing conditions for women in
Sudan as well as better birthing options for local women in the Byron
Shire.

In addition to this, the amount of joy, love and
inspiration shared by the women celebrating their own and others birth
experiences was nothing short of amazing and empowering.

The Red Tent Festival is auspiced by the Northern Rivers Maternity Coalition (NRMC), the local branch of the National Maternity Coalition. The NRMC is a not for profit, volunteer run, advocacy group that represents the coalition of women as consumers of maternity services and midwives. To find out more about the Maternity Coalition please click here or check us out on facebook.

This year, all money raised from the festival will go towards the Northern Rivers branch of Maternity Coalition to continue its work in helping improve women's access to the birthing services they want and to the Rhodanthe Lipsett Trust that provides funds for indigenous women to study midwifery. The ultimate goal for this trust is that indigenous will get the support they need to birth in country. Currently many indigenous women have to leave their country and families at approx. 36 weeks to birth in a regional centre.

The Red Tent is a novel by Anita Diamant, published in 1997 by Wyatt Books. It tells the story of Dinah, a minor character in the Bible, but the author has broadened her story. The book's title refers to the tent in which women take refuge while menstruating or giving birth, and in which they find mutual support and encouragement from their mothers, sisters and aunts.